Book-support



(No Model.) 1

JQW. OOULTAS. BOOK SUPPORT. No. 401,011. Patented Apr. 9, 1889.

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(No Model.) 2 Sheets-Sheet 2.

J. W. OOULTAS. BOOK SUPPURT.

No. 401,011. Patented Apr.'9, 1889.

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JAMES W. COULTAS, OF CLINTON, ILLINOIS.

BOOK-SUPPORT.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 401,011, dated April 9,1889. Application filed November 21, 1888. Serial No. 291,482. (Nomodel.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that 1, JAMES W. OoULrAs, of Clinton, in the county ofDe'Witt and State of Illinois, have invented a new and usefulImprovement in Book-Supports, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to that class of booksupports which are employed inthe form of a stand for supporting large works of reference, likedictionaries, &c., and which serves to hold them in either a closed oran open position.

It consists in the peculiar construction and arrangement of hingedplates, springs, and clamping devices for holding the two leaves of thebook-support with an elastic pressure when closed and in alocked openposition, as will be hereinafter fully described.

Figure 1 is a side elevation of the booksupport with a part of thestandard. Fig. 2 is a vertical longitudinal section through the centerof the clamp-plates. Fig. 3 is a partial end elevation enlarged. Figs. 4and 5 are perspective views of the hinge.

A is a vertically-adj ustable standard mounted upon suitable legs at itslower end (not shown) and provided at its upper end with a serrateddisk, A, fitting against another serrated disk, B, and clamped theretoby a clamp-screw, a. The disk B is attached to or formed in one piecewith a'frame-plate, B, that carries the book-support. By means of theseserrated disks and the clamp-screw the inclination of the book supportmay be changed to suit the convenience of the user. At the upper andlower edges of the frameplate B there are flanges Z) I), and outside ofthe flanges are cars or lugs 0, through which pass clamp-screws d d.These screws enter screw-threaded holes in the under side of a backplate, 0, which receives the back of the book. 7

Between the back plate, 0, and the frameplate B are clamped by thescrews d d the shank-plates D D of the hinges which carry the sidesorleaves E of the book-support. These hinges are each composed of aplate, D screwed to the wooden leaf and j ointed'to the doubleshank-plates D D at e e in the same axial line. These shank-plates ofeach hinge are two plates cast together but separated at their shankends, (see Figs. 4 and 5,)

and lying in different planes, so that when they are fitted togetherbetween the clampplates B and C, Fig. 2, one of the shank-plates, D, ofone-of the hinges lies in the same plane with one of the shank-plates,D, of the other hinge. In this way a firm frictional contact is securedbetween the shank-plates of the two hinges, and the latter may beadjusted in or out to adapt the book-support to receive differentthicknesses of books.

I will now proceed to describe the lockingspring hinges which hold theleaves of the book-support and close them with an elastic pressure, andas both the hinges are alike it will be sufficient to describe one ofthem.

Referring to Figs. 4 and 5, the shank-plate D and screw-plate D arejointed together at c e, forming an axis about which the hinged leaf ofthe book-support opens and closes. F is a spiral spring arrangedparallel to the axis of the hinges c e and lying between the points ofarticulation of the same. This spring has one end, f, hooked into thescrew-plate D and I the other end, g, hooked into the shank-plate D, thetension being so arranged as to tend to shut up the screw-plate carryingthe leaf of the book-support. Now when the two sections of the hinge areopened out in the same plane the spiral spring is adjusted to a newposition, as in Fig. 5 and dotted lines in Fig. 3, where its tensiondoes ilot tend to close the leaf, and allows the opened book in thebooksupport to remain open for inspection without being closed by thespring. To accomplish this, the spiral spring is provided withpintle-pins c, Fig. 5, at its ends, and these are embraced by links orhooks j j, one of which is loosely connected to the shank-plates D andthe other to the screw-plate D Now when the screw-plate D and the leafof the book-support are folded back to the opened position these linksor hooks j j throw the spiral spring laterally away from the axial line6 e of the hinge, as shown by dotted lines, Fig. 3,and full lines inFig. 5. When in this position, the tension'of the spiral spring isexerted outside of the axial line 6 c of the hinge and does not tend toclose it, as it does when'the spiral spring is concentric with thehinge.

To stop the hinged leaf in its opened position without allowing it to goback too far,

lngs k 7a are formed on the screw-plate D which lugs strike against theshank-plates when the hinge is open and limit the outward or openingmovement.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new is- 1. Thecombination, in a book-support, of two hinged plates jointed togetherabout a fixed axial line, a spiral spring arranged parallel and adjacentto that line and having one end attached to one hinged plate and theother end to the other hinged plate, and link-bars connected loosely tothe opposite ends of the spring and opposite hinged plates, whereby theaxis of the spring is thrown away from the axis of the hinge when thelatter is opened JAMES W. GOULTAS.

Vitnesscs:

SAMEL HENRON, FRED ROBINSON.

